xp_logs | Operation: Melittology

X-Force finally tracks down the source of all the clues, straight into a trap.

The sound of the explosion bounced back and forth in the confined space of the hanger; audio shrapnel to compliment the chunks of reinforced concrete and metals that had been flung inwards as the blast reached the wall. It was a makeshift door, and already the first members of X-Force rushed through it, even as the men at the other end of the hanger reacted to the sudden shock.

Mark did his part not give them the opportunity to react. His fists blazing with golden energy, he was barely a step behind Sarah, and cleared the way for her as the air between him and the nearest gunman ignited so fast that thunder crashed. He smiled viciously and fired at another pair of gunmen, dropping them just as they reached their guns.

A flash of smile might have crossed Sarah's face then, and she threw herself at a man who was pushing himself back up off the ground. "He doesn't know the rules. You're supposed to stay down."

Sudden, piercing screams of pain echoed off the walls, further startling the rest of the men. One of them had taken position and had attempted to open fire on the advancing mutants, only to have his arms spasm, forcing the shots to go wide. Two of his friends now lay on the ground, grabbing their injured limbs. He stared down, in shock, until a piece of thrown rubble caught him directly in the middle of the forehead and he dropped without a sound.

Wanda dusted the remaining bits of dirt off her hands as the hex rings faded slightly.

"I think they did not get the memo." Marie-Ange offered. "Perhaps DJ forgot to send it?" To all appearances she was doing nothing except standing to the side. But the set of fur-and-leather clad stereotypical vikings she'd created as they came in through Mark's 'door' were chasing down a pair of gunmen. And doing their level best to try to break their kneecaps with large maces.

There was a flurry of explosions, forcing the mercenaries back, as Remy finally dropped from the ceiling. The Cajun had been dismantling alarm systems on the roof, and had made his own way into the hanger. He scattered cards as he dropped, forcing them back from the airplane and into a defensive position behind some crates. It made the job of Wanda, Sarah, Marie-Ange and Mark more difficult, but it also arranged a safe path to and from the plane for the others. "Winddancer, you clear to bring you team in."

Remy ducked as a crate came slashing through the air at him, barely missing him to crash on the floor. "Telekinetic. Merde!. Scarlet Witch, Marrow, you wit' me. Tarot, take DJ and shut down dose guns! We take de two Chinese mutants!" With that, Remy was moving, heading for the mutants with Sarah and Wanda in tow.

***

Through the now vacated hole that had been blown in the wall, the rest of X-Force emerged, heading for the still plane.

"Just another day at the office," Amanda muttered, flinging up a shield big enough for the four of them to get behind. Running and shielding was tricky, and she couldn't cast the spell around all sides, but it would do. She winced despite herself as a random burst of machine-gun fire raked across the surface - dullish grey, streaked with splashes of colour like graffiti; this close to Berlin, her shield was drawing on the old Wall. "Ah, someone want to get that? I'm not sure how bullet proof I can keep this."

Bulletproof was preferable to Doug, given his past experience with guns. He leaned out past the edge of the shield spell and let fly with a pair of throwing knives. The gunners had good cover, however, and they hunkered down behind the crates. "Winddancer?" he asked nervously.

"Just get them to call me Winddancer, because I'm killing the next person who does," she muttered, a hint of a snarl at the end of her accent. Sofia separated the boxes with a Moses-like gesture before giving the two revealed gunmen a pretty wave and backward push into a wall, back of the head first. They crumpled easily. "I have to do everything around here."

Illyana, barely pausing for the others to get them through this godawful thing, thought that at least Sofia didn't have to be Majik.

Sofia's efforts had cleared the way, and Amanda started to head for the Lear, sitting by the hangar door. "Cargo hold!" she called, hands raised to maintain the shield - just as well this wasn't some remote country airstrip.

"Hey, I don't have any cool 'at a distance' powers, and dodging gunfire? Not so much," Doug groused good-naturedly to Sofia. So far, things appeared to be going well. The key was to keep the opposition off-balance until they could achieve their objective. He kept close behind the leading edge of the shield until they were just outside the plane, and then he ducked around to let another knife fly. The mercenary stationed at the plane didn't have the luxury of crates for cover, so Doug was able to hit him in the leg. The moment of distraction from the knife was enough for Doug to dart inside his guard, and a quick elbow strike to the back of the head left him on the ground, unconscious.

Without breaking stride, Doug grabbed the handle to release the cargo hold door. "Open!" he called to his team, squirming in before the door had even completed opening.

Illyana ducked in second, frowning at the mercenary's clear lack of focus. Just because you had a knife in your leg was no reason to... well, anyway. She sighed inwardly, eyes adjusting to the light, and made way for the others.

Amanda waited until everyone else was in before following, dropping the shield as soon as they were under cover. She stayed watching the door, however, as the others moved to start disarming and opening the containers. "Not a lot of time here..." she reminded them, perhaps unneccessarily, but Amanda always got twitchy during the active parts of a mission.

Metallic clicks heralded the opening of the first container, but instead of a stolen child, inside was a boiling, heaving mass of...

"Are those bees?"

***

Strucker's men had been hit hard and fast, but they were quickly recovering, firing at the mutants from cover.

"Should've brought my cowboy hat. S'like an old western movie," Mark muttered to Marie-Ange from behind a stack of barrels. He peeked out, spotted a gunman firing at them, and returned blast for bullet. "You ever seen Shane? I love that movie."

"The only western I have seen is Brokeback Mountain. And I am not sure if I enjoyed that or not." Marie-Ange answered, after taking a quick look around the barrels and ducking back at the sound of gunfire. "I like these fights so much better when I get to hit things." She muttered under her breath, as she patted at her pockets, obviously looking for something. A moment later, she produced a tiny pad of paper with a equally tiny pencil attached to it by a chain. "I am not getting shot again this season." She bent her head, sketched quickly. "Can you herd them together? I have an idea."

"The only good thing about Brokeback is that it pissed a lot of people off. Hold on a sec." Mark took out his iPod and quickly queued up Mussorgsky. He squinted his eyes as he concentrated, and conjured a blue-yellow dome around the gunmen. He slowly clenched his fist, willing the dome to shrink. "S'too big," he said around the lump suddenly growing in his throat. "Can't hold this for too long."

"I do not need much time." Marie-Ange had finished her drawing, and torn off the piece of paper from the pad. She looked once again around the barrels, eyes darting from the piece of paper to the gunmen to the ceiling above them. "Let it go!" She made an audible grunt of concentration, and above the dome a pallet of grey-and-white concrete bricks appeared, falling as they grew more solid to the eye. In a second, the dome winked out of existence, and the bricks landed on the gunmen, knocking them to the ground.

Mark smiled wearily and put an arm around Marie-Ange to help her keep her balance. "Rocks fall, everyone dies. Good plan."

The bricks falling to the ground had felt like they were falling inside her head. Marie-Ange leaned against Mark, and pinched her nose. It was either running, or bleeding, and she suspected the latter. "Never let me do that again.." She asked. "It was like ten thousand elephants doing the macarena inside my skull."

***

One of the Chinese mutants dropped his gun as they approached, his skin rippling to a dull purple colour as he grew in both size and strength. His partner, the one LeBeau had pegged as a telekinetic, was firing short controlled bursts, while using debris to try and distract them.

Wanda took a step forward but paused as her foot came to rest on a handgun. It must have been lost in the rush to escape Remy's explosions because when one was running for one's life, they didn't tend to notice things falling off of them. At least not at first. Quickly studying the strings, she suddenly looked thoughtful and scooped up the gun. Firearms were not her weapon of choice and she tried to stay as far away from them as possible. But sometimes, weird called to weird and her powers could make anything useful.

It only took her a moment to get it ready -- as unfamiliar as she was with it, it was a simple weapon and she'd seen enough action movies to know about the safety -- before she held it outstretched before her. It was held in almost a loose grip, as if she wasn't concerned about it -- and she wasn't. Wanda was probably the worlds worst shot with a gun but it didn't matter, not really. It made a loud noise as it fired but the trained mercenaries had already known she wasn't going to hit them, not by a long shot.

And so, she'd aimed the gun at them, knowing she was going to miss and the bullet buried itself in the nearly hidden explosive tank behind them, creating a small explosion that took out several surprised guards. There were days where she simply loved her powers.

Sarah followed behind, covering them in case someone was stupid enough to follow. Or to come looking for the source of the explosions. She eyed Wanda, bone gripped tightly in her hand. "I think that one singed my eyebrows."

The gypsy simply laughed and blew a kiss Sarah's way before tossing the gun to the ground, where it fell apart almost instantly.

"Can we focus?" Remy muttered, as all three scattered from the heavy steel frame that smashed down where they had been standing. The mutant was flinging warehouse equipment like children's toys. Remy motioned at Sarah. Wanda was better equiped to finish off the telekinetic that she'd already briefly set on fire. He needed Sarah's abilities, as they approached the mutant from either side. He didn't seem to notice the impacts from Remy's card's much, but they at least kept his attention on the Cajun while Sarah got into his blind spot.

Remy dodged a sledgehammer blow, rolling deftly and reaching out to snag a grenade from the man's belt. Roaring, the mutant swung again, and Remy grinning. "Just keep dat big mouth open, homme." He muttered, backhanding the grenade to Sarah, where she had a perfect position behind the bastard.

Sarah threw herself at the man with a growl, shoving the bone in her hand as far into his back as she could manage. It only took a moment before he reared back with a bellow, trying to swat her away with one of his bulky arms. The bone gave her some leverage, and she hauled herself up onto him, bony fingers clinging desperately into his skin. He bellowed again, and she took advantage of the opportunity to shove the grenade into his mouth, shoving herself away from him hard with her feet. Her landing hurt, but it was nothing like what having a grenade explode in your mouth probably felt like.

A half-charred figure suddenly rushed out from the debris, screaming obscenities but he ignored Remy and Sarah, having eyes only for Wanda. When he gestured, she suddenly found herself several feet off the ground as invisible bands wrapped around her and squeezed. Her eyes widened but she couldn't struggle -- she couldn't even move a finger. She stared down at the telekinetic, his hair gone and burn marks already appearing on his skin, as he grinned wildly as he advanced.

If she couldn't move her...no. No. Remy had been drilling it into her head for months that she could do without the hand movements. They were a crutch, a hindrance and something to do without. The lines flared up once, twice and then she pushed -- right as the man took a step and suddenly reignited, parts of the smoldering clothing going back up in flames. When he started screaming, Wanda dropped back on the floor and watched as he turned and ran straight into the side of the plane, cracking his head wide open before dropping to the ground.

***

Bees boiled out of the steel containers, as even the untouched ones unlocked by a remote signal. The cloud forced them back from the cargo hold, swarming and chaotically distracting the members of X-Force. There were few stings though, obviously driving them back for something. Outside the plane, the first team had formed up, ready to head for the plane, although not entirely sure what to do when they got there. Of all the possibilities discussed about the cargo, bees had never made it into the scenario. More bees appeared, a shifting cloud that filled the hanger with their drone. Wanda and Remy shared a puzzled look. This was entirely new and unlikely trap.

#beautifularentthey# The words came fractured and harsh; a trilling hum as they rushed out, etched from the omnipresent buzz. Improbably; impossibly, a figure stood in the midst of the swarm of insects. It was human, or at least human shaped; Mark's height and remarkable in the fact that the body was constantly moving. It stepped forward, and with each step, the horrible realization sunk in. It wasn't a man, but rather a swarm of bees in man shape, each movement and limbs composed of thousands of living bees. There was the odd flicker of bone under the living mass, and its movements were unmistakenly human. The only thing not odd about the entire situation was the most dangerous part; considering the hives in the plane, the waiting mercenaries, X-Force had walked straight into a trap meant for them.

#itisashamewecannotintroduceeachotherbyscentitisamuchrichergreeting# The figure's German was excellent, although somewhat old fashioned. His 'voice' was composed by the buzz of the insects, modulated to approximate human speech. #itisenoughtosayyoukilledmyclosestfriendandforthatimustreturntheaction#

"Bees." Marie-Ange near-whispered. "He is made of bees. He is made of bees, and speaks German and this is all connected to Baron Von Strucker, and we are fighting Nazi Bees." If it hadn't been terrifying, she would have laughed. "This is insane. I know sanity from insanity and this is quite mad. Nazi. Bees." If it hadn't been so ridiculous, she might have run out of the hanger screaming.

Wanda couldn't stop staring. The sight was as insane as it was terrifying -- most normal people had an instant terrified reaction to one bee, not to mention a swarm. But a swarm like this? There were no words, just a gut instinct that told her it might be wise to retreat. But this job sometimes laughed at wisdom and so she stood ground.

All the drugs in the world couldn't have prepared Mark for this. With "Night on Bald Mountain" still playing, it was like a scene from a parody of Fantasia. "So, wait, what? I have no idea what's goin' on."

If it weren't for the fact that Doug was in the middle of a category five freak-out, he would have responded to Mark with the "dogs and bees" Simpsons reference. Where Wanda had been able to master her instinctive fear, though, Doug was skittering behind the heavy hitters of the group. "That man is made of bees." he said, as though if he could somehow disbelieve what he was seeing, it would go away.

"Yes, Cypher," Marie-Ange said tightly.

"That man is MADE of BEES," Doug repeated, a note of hysteria creeping into his voice.

"We know, Cypher," Amanda replied, a bit of exasperation coming out in her tone as she held her shield against the cloud of bees that had herded them out of the cargo bay of the plane.

"BEES. Made of BEES!" he said, just short of a panicked yell.

"CYPHER!" Wanda snapped. "We know."

"Can we please get back to de bad guy dat's trapped us all here, merci?" Remy said, extremely annoyed. His spatial sense was going off the chart trying to track the bees, and it felt like his head was about to come off trying.

The figure moved a little closer, unconcerned about whatever power the mutants might have. #mongrelsallofyouthegypsythehalfnigressthefilthofamericathepurityoftheswarmisbeyondyou# He spread his arms and the cloud of bees coalesced around him. #iampureiamtheswarmandyourbloodshallpayforwolfgang's#

The scene suddenly exploded, bees diving down on them like a physical blow while Swarm itself joined the combat. Only his speed keep Remy from the opening blow, as he vaulted over the attack, ignoring the bees that clouded him. His cards would be like swatting at them with a sledgehammer, and the one he did strike with simply killed a group of bees to be replaced by another. He needed another option and gain distance looking for it.

Marie-Ange was still staring, and wishing for a flamethrower. Or a giant fly swatter, or an extra-large can of Raid, or anything that would be more effective then trying to avoid the bees flying towards her. The closer the bees got, the more she realized that there was little, if anything she could do, except to try to get away. She buried her face in the crook of her elbow and retreated back, grabbing a still panicking Doug by the waist of his pants and pulling him along with her.

She wasn't the only one wishing for something a bit more offensive. Amanda's shielding spell was stretched as thin as it would go, trying to give her teammates some cover. The stings she'd gotten in the cargo hold burned and itched. "We sure could have used Pete for this one..." she muttered, gritting her teeth as the spell started inching back on itself.

A hex blast tore through a section of the bees but it really only seemed to make the swarm angry as a number of them dropped, dead, to the ground. Wanda backed up a step, eyes wide, as the bees swirled around, forming into a hand. "Oh, that cannot be good," she said, gearing up to send more blasts but she wasn't fast enough. The man made out of bees, or whatever it was, gestured and the giant hand backhanded her right off her feet.

She landed several feet back, half curled on her side to protect herself but the swarm had backed off. In a second, she realized why. A number of dead bees laid littered around her, not of her doing but because their stingers were now embedded in her flesh. She tried to curse but her throat was already seizing and constricting closed, and breathing was becoming something of a struggle.

The reaction was rapid as an immense amount of bee venom started to course through her body – they'd gotten lucky, several of the stingers had hit a direct blood vessel.

A string of curses in several different languages came from Doug as he saw Wanda crumple. He'd been off-balance since the swarm's emergence from the cargo hold, as the cloud of bees had evoked a visceral fear in him that he hadn't experienced yet, despite all the strange and disgusting things that X-Force had encountered. He'd hung back from the confrontation, as he didn't see a way he could hurt the swarm, but with a team member down, he could finally do something constructive. He dashed to Wanda's prone form, expending valuable time and energy viciously kicking the bee carcasses away from her before dropping to his knees. The swelling was already severe and getting worse, and Doug nearly retched at the sight.

"Wanda!" The name was ripped from Amanda's throat as she saw her mentor go down, saw Doug already dashing to her side. Reacting instinctively, she ran towards them, viciously kicking a Chinese mercenary in the head as he tried to grab at her ankle from his prone position. The shield was dropped and reformed with barely a thought, the three of them encased in the dull sheen of magic. "C'mon, Wanda, 's just a few bee stings..." she muttered to herself, despite the evidence in front of her. "Get her on her back," she instructed Doug, seeing the difficulty the older woman was already having with breathing.

Wanda was vaguely aware of hands trying to straighten her out and while she wasn't trying to fight them, it was hard going. Her entire body was cramping and twisting inside itself and she was dry heaving as well – a small comfort because if she had been actually vomiting, she might have choked due to the swelling of her throat. Her immune system was going into overdrive but the problem was it could kill her. Or make things incredibly painful. Someone touched red, swollen skin and she screamed in reaction, jerking away.

"Stay STILL, goddamit!" Doug shouted, even though he knew Wanda wasn't doing it on purpose. His nerves were so badly jangled that he needed to express it in some way, though, and the cursing and shouting enabled him to focus his body on the tasks that needed doing.

"Get a grip, Doug!" Gripping Wanda's jaw so tightly there'd be bruises later, Amanda wrenched Wanda's head back, trying to maintain her airway. "'Ya... Magik!" she screamed, just remembering the Russian girl's codename in time. "Get your arse to a hospital, NOW. Bee anti-venom, steal it if you fucking well have to, get it back here as fast as you can!"

The blonde Russian disappeared with a flash.

Hands curled into claws as Wanda hitched a breath and then another. And then, suddenly, she went limp, head falling back against the floor with a soft thud. It wasn't a good thing – even though passing out from the pain meant she wouldn't be fighting Doug and Amanda anymore, it also meant something else. A second passed and her chest stayed disturbingly still.

Doug's cursing rose in intensity and volume even as his hands moved, almost on autopilot, sliding his fingers up Wanda's ribcage to find a point just below her sternum. Interlacing his fingers, he never even looked at Amanda, knowing that she would handle the breathing since she was already up near Wanda's head. "Ein, zwei, drei..." he began counting, the heel of his palm pressing downward in short, sharp thrusts.

"Fuck no..." Amanda whispered, going white. Then Doug began CPR and she reacted just as automatically, clamping her fingers over Wanda's nose and waiting until Doug hit "Fünf" before plunging her mouth down over Wanda's and breathing out. Another five count, another breath, Wanda's chest rising less and less each time. 'C'mon 'Yana, make with the miracle,' she prayed, taking another breath and blowing into Wanda's mouth, only to hit resistance. She tried again, but it was like trying to blow down a blocked straw. "I can't get the air in!" she almost wailed to Doug.

"Ichi, ni, san...WHERE'S THAT FUCKING ANTI-VENOM?" Doug roared as he continued compressions on Wanda's chest. That small part at the back of his mind not occupied with doing his best to keep Wanda alive noted that this was probably how Madelyn had felt when it had been him lying on the ground. He shoved that thought away. He hadn't died that day, and he'd be damned if Wanda was going to today.

Wanda's trachea had swollen to the point air couldn't fit. If they'd been a medical program, there would have been emergency tracheotomies performed with ballpoint pens. But a couple of years helping out in the medlab feeding patients and changing bedding and bandages wasn't a medical degree and never would be. Amanda, however, had something else she could do. She lay her hand on Wanda's throat, and met Doug's eyes. There was no need for words as she released the healing spell, pulling on the energy of everyone in the room.

Doug knew what Amanda intended practically before she began to lower her hand. He finished a set of compressions and sat back on his heels, ready for the moment of weakness Amanda's healing would bring. He willingly gave the energy, not fighting the pull of Amanda's power. He wobbled for a moment, then rocked forward to begin CPR again. "Odin, dva, tri..."

After the first compression, Wanda's back arched off the ground as she drew in a deep breath of air. "~Fuck!~" she grated out in Rom, one hand digging into Amanda's thigh. She struggled to sit up but insistent hands gently pushed her back down and she didn't fight it. Everything still hurt but the edge had gone away and she was breathing once more. Her eyes rolled around for a second as she tried to get her bearings and then she realized what else was bothering her.

The entire world had gone nuts, or near enough to matter. Lines exploded across her vision like fireworks but they were out of focus and moving too fast for her to grab or manipulate. Whatever charge Amanda had given her hadn't been enough, she realized, coughing wildly. The venom was still in her system and while she wasn't about to die, it was still creating havoc.

At that moment, Illyana popped back into existence, passing over a needle set wordlessly. Amanda jabbed it without paused into Wanda's neck.

"Oh for fuck's sake..." Chunks of the roof began to shower down, and Amanda tried desperately to recreate her shielding spell. At the sound of her hand clap, there was a flicker in the air around her, but not much else. "Uh, someone? Do something? Anything?"

Mark stepped up behind Amanda and reloaded Mussorgsky. "Fucking bee people, and now Wanda's fucking up." Headphones securely over his ears so he couldn't hear anything but the music, he waved his left hand, putting up a shield around the lot of them just in time to knock away a block of falling roof. Then he turned to the bees and raised his right hand. Even before he put up a second shield around as many bees as he could, he felt his brain start to violently protest. And each time the bees flew into the blue-yellow bubble, it felt like someone was punching him in the face. It wasn't long before he felt something warm trickle down his upper lips, but he was too afraid that if he moved to wipe away the blood from his nose, then he'd lose both shields.

With the situation rapidly deteriorating, Remy look at a list of diminishing options. They could kill thousands, tens of thousands of bees, and this Swarm creature still had more. It was like trying to fight a sand storm with boxing gloves on. Remy paused for a second, looking over at the hanger's other contents.

"Tarot! I want you to take over shielding when I give de word!" Remy yelled, already out from behind the protection and running. Part of the Swarm turned to follow him, urged on by the guttural, buzzing laugh of their master. It didn't matter though. Remy had one ace left up his sleeve. All he needed to do was unleash it. The Cajun vaulted a repair table and skidded to a stop by the maintenance rack. He grabbed a bag of road salt in each hand and turned back.

Swarm had almost reached Mark's shields, and the young man wouldn't last against a concentrated assault. Remy ripped the tops off of both bags, ignoring the sporadic stings he received as he closed. They needed just one second of clear air around this Swarm for this to work. "DJ, when I tell Tarot, give me hell 'round dat bastard!" In his hands, the bags started to glow purple.

"Tarot, now!"

The walls that came up were overlapping disks of metal - some bronze, some copper, some a more burnished gold. And as the first set of walls joined together in a dome, a second set began appearing inside the first, and then a third. On the outside, the individual disks winked away as the bees battered against it, and reformed almost immediately, occasionally squishing a small group of bee between the plates.

Inside, Marie-Ange sat curled up, pressing her face almost into her forearm, and twitching slightly every time a set of disks was damaged or destroyed.

As soon as her walls snapped into existence, Remy tossed the bags, tearing them open to scatter the small granules of salt, flaring with the kinetic charge. They exploded in a wide cloud, with far less power than one of Remy's cards, but expending themselves over a wider area. The cloud of bees that had threatened to swamp the wall was suddenly open air, and now Swarm himself was partially clear. It was up to Mark to clear the rest.

His shield around the group disappeared just as Marie-Ange put up hers, leaving Mark with a free hand to quickly spin the track wheel and queue up Fear Factory. With his headphones on and the volume turned way up to hear Mussorgsky, he was almost deafened by the auditory assault. But he turned it outward, throwing his hands out and releasing a tempestuous blast of energy that nearly vaporized the bees.

Leaving just one thing left. Raising from her crouch, Sofia smiled eerily at the bee creature. She could almost see the exact moment when he realised what she was going to do, a widening around the glow that was his eyes. "I hope this kills you," she told him coldly, and without even bothering to raise a hand at him, willed a furious gust into the space, sending the bees that clung so close to his frame flying into the walls with a thousand small, sickly thunks.

The Swarm fell back, raising his hands in a disturbingly human way to try and ward off the sudden onslaught of wind. As the bees were stripped from his frame, they exposed a sticky skeleton underneath. With a roar, he turned and began to flee, his body moving disjointedly.

Remy and Mark turned to pursue, but a final wave of bees cut them off, even as it cut behind a wall and out of the hellish fury of Sofia's winds. Remy briefly considered chasing him, but Wanda was still breathing badly, all of them had numerous stings dotting them, and Amanda's healing had left them drained. Knowing that they run into the Swarm again, Remy waved them back.

"Non. Dis isn't de time, for once. Let's get out of here before de authorities show up. We need to get Wanda some medical attention." He paused. "We got set up, cold, and dere de ones dat lost people. Dat's de best we going to get out of dis. Good work."

And with that, they were gone.